MTT Late mid-level/bubble trouble

Hello all. I'm a relative newcomer to cardschat, and to 'real' poker (meaning that until a couple of months ago I played occasionally with friends, but had no idea what position, pot odds, implied odds, fold equity, or any of that jazz meant) and am just now getting the hang of it.

I have improved my game using NLHE freerolls as my training ground, and have now several times made it to the last 120 or so out of both fields of 2700(FT) and 9000(PS), as well as winning several of the round one face the ace and main event freerolls, doing more or less ok in the second rounds, (no final tables yet). I play a tight but aggressive game early on during the All In Donk Parties, loosening up from position once the mid level blinds/antes arrive, stealing a few of the now decent sized blinds. However, it is the late-mid stages approaching the bubble that start giving me trouble.

I've read about how its good approaching the bubble to start playing extra aggressive from position to steal blinds, but find that I am often not the only one at the table trying to do it, and the hand is rarely folded or limped around to me in position. I tend to see a lot of raises from EP and MP, and simply can't bring myself to re-raise or call a raise with less than at least a playable hand. Or I see a lot of people aggressively defending their blinds with re-raises, or calling my preflop raise and then re-raising or calling my cbet (even though I have developed a tight table image), after which I'm then left on a turn with no hand considering whether or not to fire a second barrell.

Moreover, by the time I'm on the bubble I often have an average sized stack (25xBB or so), but nothing I'm going to be pushing people around with. Thus, I can't be as aggressive as I would prehaps like to be for fear of risking too much of my stack or becoming pot committed against the bigger stacks with marginal hands. Soon the blinds and antes start to push my M to 20 or below and I start running out of options.

Have any of you faced similar challenges, and how did you overcome them? Perhaps I'm not being as aggressive as I should be in the mid-level blinds, or should simply play more fearlessly on the bubble despite being challenged by the other larger stacks, although I risk busting out earlier. Any suggestions would be extremely helpful.

Thanks in advance for your time!

a good rule of thumb for blind stealing, don't do it every time but it works a lot near the bubble, raise if you're utg or utg+1, people respect early position a lot more then late position, that should give you a few more, you also have to be willing to play a more postflop game nearing the bubble, the main key though is to have enough chips left that you can essentially, lose 2-3 decent hands with 100 left or so in a low stakes, the freerolls aren't indicative because they play slightly differently

power of position needs to be used to your advantage pre and post flop, by this note if you're sitting on a suited connector or better, have 30-40 bb nearing the bubble, and have noticed that a person likes to go for the blinds in early position, if it's 3xbb or 4xbb, generally i like to call in this scenario and try to outplay them postflop, because you will have position and he won't be able to put you on a hand as easily as you will him, obviously if the board is loaded then you need to be careful postflop, but on a weak board, that's generally an easy steal for someone in position

hope this improves your late game play and gl at the tables

This is the opposite of the way I think.

As I approach the bubble with 25BB, I figure I'm going to abuse all the other 25BB players who are trying not to bubble out.

I'm not shoving any two, but any hand that's not likely to be a huge dog will be used to shove around the other medium stacks. Don't pick on microstacks since they are looking for a quick double to stay in it, and don't pick on the monster, since he might call you for fun. Pick on the guys in the same boat as you, who are trying to make it past the bubble with a reasonable shot at winning.

Also, don't steal a pot someone has already entered, and respectfully, I disagree with the first response about stealing out-of-position. I won't move on the blinds if there is a monster or a microstack between me and them, since I'm likely to get called by one of them with a marginal hand.